The University of Maryland is in serious negotiations to join the Big Ten Conference, sources told ESPN on Saturday.

If Maryland goes from the ACC to the Big Ten, Rutgers of the Big East is expected to follow suit. The addition of Maryland and Rutgers would give the Big Ten 14 members as the league gears toward negotiations on a new media rights deal when its first-tier rights expire in 2017.

No date has been set for a potential announcement, though it could come as soon as Monday.

Maryland president Wallace Loh has been handling the conversation with Big Ten officials, a source said.

One source told ESPN that Maryland athletic director Kevin Anderson has informed key staffers that there are ongoing discussions.

One stumbling block for Maryland could be finances. Maryland's athletic department has recently dropped sports because of budget issues, and the ACC recently raised its exit fee to $50 million.

Maryland and Florida State were the only two of 12 schools that voted against a $50 million exit fee out of the ACC, but lost the vote. Loh was quoted in the Washington Post on Sept. 13 that he was against the hike from $20-50 million on "legal and philosophical" grounds. The Post reported that Loh said Maryland planned to be in the ACC for years to come.

A source told ESPN that the Big Ten has been itchy about further expansion since Notre Dame made its official move to the ACC two months ago in all sports other than football. The source said the Big Ten can justify Maryland and then possibly Rutgers since they are all contiguous states to the Big Ten footprint.

One source told ESPN that Loh and Anderson don't have ACC ties so there wouldn't be a strong emotional pull to stay with the conference. Loh is a former provost at Big Ten member Iowa.

However, the chancellor of the Maryland system, Brit Kirwan, has been on the Maryland campus for 30 years and has strong affiliation for being a charter member of the ACC, according to a source.

One source with Maryland ties said there is a strong affinity for the ACC and making the move to the Big Ten may not be a unanimous decision among the school's board of regents.

Big Ten officials did not respond to numerous requests seeking comment. ACC officials also did not respond to a request for comment. Maryland officials would not comment when asked after the Terps' football game on Saturday.

If these dominoes were to fall then Connecticut would emerge as the most likely candidate to fill Maryland's spot in the ACC. The ACC will be at 14 members in 2013-14 with the addition of the Big East's Pittsburgh and Syracuse and 15 in all sports except football when Notre Dame joins, which could be as early as fall 2013.

Rutgers' exit fee from the Big East would be less expensive. The buyout to leave the Big East is $10 million if the school provides 27 months' notice. However, the league has allowed West Virginia, Pitt and Syracuse to leave the league without honoring the 27-month requirement by paying a higher exit fee.

The Scarlet Knights would be the ninth member of the Big East to leave or announce they were leaving the league since 2004. Six of those defections have occurred in the past year -- Pitt, Syracuse and Notre Dame to the ACC; TCU and West Virginia to the Big 12 and Rutgers to the Big Ten.

The Scarlet Knights were charter members of the Big East's football conference, which began in 1991.

Maryland also was a charter member of the ACC, one of eight schools to start the league in 1953.

Both Maryland and Rutgers are members of the AAU (Association of American Universities), something vital to Big Ten presidents.

The addition of the two East Coast schools would dramatically stretch the Big Ten's footprint. With Maryland holding down the Beltway, Rutgers offering up the New York market and Penn State's strong eastern ties, the league has a solid anchor in the mid-Atlantic states.

Maryland and Rutgers also would make the nation's richest conference even wealthier. Last season, each Big Ten school received a record $24.6 million in shared revenue, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported. One source said the success of the Big Ten Network is an intriguing factor for Maryland.

If the two schools join the Big Ten, it would reopen what many thought was a stable time in the conference realignment process. The Big Ten joins the SEC as a legitimate 14-team superconference, while the ACC drops to 13 football members and likely will pursue another all-sports member to get back to 14.

ACC commissioner John Swofford said at ACC media day and during the news conference when the Irish were added that the league wouldn't go beyond 14 football members and could easily exist with an odd number (15) in men's and women's basketball. But if a football member were to leave, the ACC would likely have to make a move.

Maryland, meanwhile, will become only the second school to leave the ACC. South Carolina was the other, leaving in 1971 to become an independent. The Gamecocks are now members of the SEC.

In the past few years, the nation's top five conferences -- SEC, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12 and ACC -- have added a total of 10 new members, causing a domino effect throughout the college landscape from coast to coast.

Dana O'Neil, Brett McMurphy and Andy Katz are all college sports reporters for ESPN. ESPN.com's Adam Rittenberg and Heather Dinich contributed to this report.

Heard about this and I really hope not. We are already stuck with Indiana, Illinois, Purdue, and Minnesota. Add some more competition that can hang like Nebraska.

I think Rutgers and Maryland both field decent teams more often that Minnesota, Indiana or Illinois. Off the top of my head without doing any checking I would put Maryland and Rutgers on the same plane as Michigan State and Iowa. They're not usually gonna be as good as OSU, Michigan, Nebraska, but they'd be solidly in that second tier and capable of challenging for a conference title every few years.

__________________When the opponent is focused and determined, as they tend to be in the big games, Lewis and Dalton melt and disintegrate.... Entirely out of their element.

Heard about this and I really hope not. We are already stuck with Indiana, Illinois, Purdue, and Minnesota. Add some more competition that can hang like Nebraska.

You took the words out of my... fingers?

The only way I would want either of them is if they were neccessary to keep the conference at an even number when we add Notre Dame. Which won't happen. Even then, I'd rather see us kick out Minnesota. Indiana gives us a good boost in basketball, Illinois is occasionally good, and Purdue still provides some NFL talent and some fun upsets.

On a different note, do they (Maryland or Rutgers) even meet our academic qualifications?

__________________

Below are histograms showing all NFL coaches hired since the merger who have coached more than one season, sorted by their regular season and playoff win percentage.
The bar which includes Marvin is in black.

The University of Maryland's Board of Regents voted Monday to accept an invitation to join the Big Ten and begin competition in the conference in the 2014-15 academic year.

Meanwhile, Big East Conference sources told ESPN that Rutgers will be announced as the 14th member of the Big Ten on Tuesday.

"Today is a watershed moment for the University of Maryland," said university president Wallace D. Loh in a release. "Membership in the Big Ten Conference is in the strategic interest of the University of Maryland."

Loh added it would "ensure the financial vitality of Maryland Athletics for decades to come," and offer opportunities to boost the "education, research, and innovation" of the university.

Once Maryland's board voted and faxed a letter of application to the Big Ten on Monday, the conference's council of presidents unanimously approved the Terrapins' admission, a source said. Maryland, along with seven others, was a charter member of the Atlantic Coast Conference in 1953.

"Our best wishes are extended to all of the people associated with the University of Maryland. Since our inception, they have been an outstanding member of our conference and we are sorry to see them exit," ACC commissioner John Swofford said in a statement. "For the past 60 years the Atlantic Coast Conference has exhibited leadership in academics and athletics. This is our foundation and we look forward to building on it as we move forward."

Sources at Maryland believe the Terps will be able to negotiate the current $50 million exit fee from the ACC to a lower amount. The additions of Maryland and Rutgers would spur the Big Ten, then, toward negotiations on a new media-rights deal when its first-tier rights expire in 2017.

"It's pretty obvious to us that the paradigm has shifted, and it's not your father's Big Ten. It's probably not your father's ACC," said Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany. "I think that what the paradigm shift is that other conferences had, we had chosen not to. We explored the collaboration (with the Pac-12). It couldn't be executed. The Pac-12 couldn't do what they thought they could do. And at that juncture, we thought we should seriously think about contiguous states, AAU (Association of American Universities, which concentrates on research) institutions and to determine whether or not that was plausible. We found out that it was, and we moved from there."

The stepped-up negotiations between Maryland and the Big Ten, and the conference's scheduled vote on the Terrapins' membership, were reported by ESPN over the weekend.

"The question is what's the future" of the ACC, Maryland regent Patricia Florestano told ESPN.com on Monday. "We've got to look to the future." Asked if the future of Maryland athletics is brighter in the Big Ten than in the ACC, Florestano said, "we perceived it that way."

One stumbling block for Maryland was thought to be a financial one. Its athletic department has recently dropped sports programs because of budget concerns, and the ACC recently raised its exit fee to the aforementioned $50 million.

Maryland and Florida State were the only two of the ACC's 12 schools that voted against a $50 million exit fee but lost the vote. Loh was quoted in The Washington Post on Sept. 13 as saying he was against the hike from $20 million to $50 million on "legal and philosophical" grounds.

Under Armour founder and Maryland uber-booster Kevin Plank will not be contributing to the ACC buyout fund, sources tell ESPN. Plank, who started his company during his time as a walk-on with the Terrapins football team, has emerged as the school's biggest booster, and his filing with the Security and Exchange Commission to sell approximately $65 million worth of stock triggered a rumor that it would be earmarked for Maryland. But Plank, who is worth $1.35 billion according to Forbes, is not using the money to support his alma mater.

A source told ESPN that the Big Ten has been itchy about further expansion since Notre Dame made its official move to the ACC two months ago in all sports but football. The source said the Big Ten can justify Maryland and then Rutgers because they are in contiguous states to the Big Ten footprint.

When Maryland and Rutgers join, they will move into the Leaders Division occupied by Ohio State, Penn State, Wisconsin, Purdue and Indiana, Loh told the board of regents. Illinois then would shift from the Leaders to the Legends Division.

would dramatically stretch the Big Ten's shadow. With Maryland holding down the Beltway, Rutgers, in New Brunswick, N.J., offering up the New York market and Penn State's strong eastern ties, the league has a solid anchor in the mid-Atlantic states.

Maryland becomes only the second school to leave the ACC. South Carolina was the other, leaving in 1971 to become an independent. The Gamecocks are now members of the SEC.

Even though Maryland's basketball program will leave behind rich traditional ACC rivalries with NC State, Duke and North Carolina, coach Mark Turgeon is on board with the move to the Big Ten come 2014-15.

"It doesn't change a thing," Turgeon said by phone Monday. "We're going from one great league to another. I don't see a dramatic change. We're still trying to recruit the best players we can at the highest possible level. We're just going to be in a different league in a couple of years."

In the past few years, the nation's top five conferences -- SEC, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12 and ACC -- have added 10 members, unleashing a coast-to-coast domino effect on college programs.

With the move of Maryland and pending move by Rutgers, the ACC and Big East are expected to seek replacement teams. Connecticut is the most likely candidate to join the ACC, sources said, though school officials said that they had not heard from the ACC as of Sunday night. Syracuse (to the ACC), Pittsburgh (ACC) and West Virginia (Big 12) have negotiated early withdrawals from the Big East in the past year.

An ACC official told ESPN Monday afternoon the league has not contacted or approached any schools about replacing Maryland. Any decision the league's presidents make on future membership will be a "deliberate and strategic assessment of what's best for the conference."

However, the ACC official said the league has been contacted by numerous schools inquiring about joining the league.

Well that was the Conference maybe we can have ten big teams and 4 fodder teams lol..

But the Leaders and Legends Divisions who gets who?

i hate it because with 7 teams in each "division" that only leaves two non division games...of course the osu-mich rivalry will be protected...meaning outside of the title game osu will face nebraska once every 6 years...kinda thought we could have had a good rivalry with them. oh well.

I wouldn't mind seeing Maryland for basketball, but they want the NYC and NJ market with Rutgers and nobody really cares about them.

I don't know a whole lot about Rutgers, but wouldn't Syracuse have been a better choice?

The only good I see coming out of this is possibly changing those awful division names.

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Below are histograms showing all NFL coaches hired since the merger who have coached more than one season, sorted by their regular season and playoff win percentage.
The bar which includes Marvin is in black.